-- Sunday, July 18, 1999 --

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10:57 a.m. Now that the initial shock of the downed plane and its missing occupants has worn off, those dreaded words are beginning to float to the surface: emergency beacon, fuselage, rich spoiled white boy. People are beginning to comment on the hour-by-hour CNN coverage, the front page splashes, the amount of money and time already spent on this thing, all right already. Would this much media attention be expended on another downed plane? An obscure lost pilot and his family?

Well of course not. There is only one reason there is so much coverage of this tragedy, and it is not because JFK Jr. is a scion, or rich, or white. No, no, no. None of the above. We care for one reason and one reason only: because he is cute.

And I'm not being flip. Think about it: there was such a commotion when Mother Teresa's passing did not get anywhere near the attention that the worldwide public lavished on Princess Diana. And why? Because Princess Di was cuter, and she had better outfits. Don't believe me? Think about the Barbie-doll come to life in death that was Jon Benet. Think about another murdered child? Name a plain one. How about "America's Child," Polly Klass? Or the adorable curly blond Lindbergh baby? Kid's gotta be cute to make it in this business.

Still not convinced? Remember Nicole Simpson? The cuter, the deader. Oh, and her companion was handsome, and so we remember Ron, as well as the accused, who is himself quite good-looking. We can't help ourselves, and we can't look away. A beautiful face implies good health, passable genes, and a fine spirit to match. No matter how many times they've fooled us, we cannot dismiss the evidence, or disbelieve what we can see with our own bare eyes.

I've not seen one bad picture of JFK or his son in all the coverage of the last two days. Therefore, he can't be a bad person -- he must be a good person. Looks good, is good. Now, since what you're seeing on TV and reading about in the papers is perforce a story, the people in the pictures are, of course, characters. The good prince is our hero because of the grim Disney language of looks that we've adopted as the Truth in these here parts: black-spiked goatee equals dark-hearted baddie; square dimpled chin: no sin. Big eyes: no lies; stringy greasy hair: beware, beware.

Is Linda Tripp just like you? Or me? I don't think so. Not if I can help it. What about that poor, ugly Camilla Parker-Bowles? Want her raising your boys? Or the not-so-poor Steve Forbes? You can hardly stand to watch him, let alone listen -- he's so strange. Ditto Perot. Or Michael Jackson, the before-and-after human. Yeow. You've gotta be beautiful, baby, because baby, we won't even look at you now.

But, not to worry. Not to despair. The rich may get richer, but the cute get older. Shirley Temple Black looks like any other ordinary granny now, and we've all seen today's Farrah, the wrinkled back side of the poster. Life, no matter what anybody tells you, is fair. You can complain that they only launched the thousand ships because Helen's face was to die for, but remember: no matter how cute you are these days, if you drop off our radar, you no longer exist. And no matter how rich you are, you can't buy even one second more than your predestined, God-given allotted time.

Tomorrow -- for sure.